Comments on: Performing Reference Triage

By: Cari

Cari — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:38:57 +0000

We do this at TPL, although we don’t heavily advertise the service. For OverDrive in particular, I like patrons to make appointments, because it’s just too much to cover in a few minutes. They do a lot of it in the Computer Lab – they called it “Computer Coach” – and I sometimes get drafted to do one of those.

Brian, your comment about “get to yes” is really interesting, and I think that’s something we do here too. You just have to define “yes” more broadly.

By: Links of interest: October 29, 2010 « A Modern Hypatia

Links of interest: October 29, 2010 « A Modern Hypatia — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:31:13 +0000

[...] reference: Brian Herzog talks about doing triage on reference questions in a public library setting. Not only having circulation staff handle some things, and then refer to [...]

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:20:22 +0000

These are such simple ideas for services to offer. My library has such a strong "get to yes" culture that not answering a patron's question right away often doesn't even occur to me - but now I'm seeing that a conditional "I can answer your question best if..." is not the same as "no" and is also better than a half-answer.

By: alex zealand

alex zealand — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:54:10 +0000

We’re doing something very similar at Arlington Public Library – we’ve even set up an email page for submitting detailed questions about Overdrive trouble shooting, because those take so much time and only a few of our staff members know all the specifics.
http://library.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Libraries/ref/LibrariesRefDatabaseTroubleshooting.aspx#help

By: Twitter Trackbacks for Swiss Army Librarian » Performing Reference Triage :: Brian Herzog [swissarmylibrarian.net] on Topsy.com

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:40:13 +0000

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By: Peggy O'Kane

Peggy O'Kane — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:05:02 +0000

At the Maine State Library we have a regular Book-a-Librarian program that we refer patrons to when they have an in-depth question. Patrons can also self refer using the Ask-A-Librarian link which appears not only on our home page but also on many of the Maine.gov pages.
The service isn’t used as often as I’d like but when it does both the staff person and the patron have felt that the format worked well.